Brand Fan(atic)s: When Excessive Brand Loyalty Sends the Wrong Signal

Consumers use brands in many combinations—from mixing-and-matching multiple brands (multi-brand combination; e.g., Nike shoes, Adidas shirt, Asics pants) to using only a single brand (mono-brand combination; e.g., Nike shoes, shirt, and pants). Albeit its relevance in everyday life, it is yet a “largely ignored area of branding research” (Rahinel and Redden 2013, p.1291). Addressing this gap, eight studies examine how such brand combinations (mono- vs. multi-brand) affect observers’ trust in the target consumers’ recommendations. A pre-study established managerial intuitions. MBAs (N=124) imagined being a brand manager for Nike running shoes, employing social media influencers to promote their shoes. All learned of an influencer who posted a photo wearing five branded running products; half learned the influencer’s products were all from Nike (“monobrand user”), the other half learned the products were from multiple brands (“multi-brand user”). Both influencers had on Nike running shoes—however, MBAs were more satisfied with the mono-brand user (p < .001, d = .93), believing s/he would be more credible in promoting the running shoes (p = .09, d = .31). However, seven experiments contradicted this intuition: observers actually found mono-brand users less credible. Studies 1A-1C established this main effect. Study 1A (N=200) participants encountered (within-subjects) a mono- and multi-brand user of 5 real clothing brands (between-subjects: luxury or non-luxury brands); both users had an identical focal product (Gap or Louis Vuitton work bag). Participants trusted the mono-brand user less for work bag recommendations (p < .001, d = .84) and general clothing recommendations (p < .001, d = .87). Study 1B (N=200) replicated the finding using a between-subjects design (work bag: p < .001, d = .60; clothing: p < .001, d = .94). Study 1C (N=300) replicated the finding using fictitious clothing brands (work bag: p < .001, d = .62; clothing: p < .001, d = .71). In all studies, the focal product was identical—only the broader brand combinations varied. Thus, differences in trust cannot be due to the particular choice of item. Instead, we propose this difference is driven by inferences about the users’ underlying purchase decision (e.g., Barasz et al. 2016; forthcoming; Bellezza et al. 2014; Rahinel and Redden 2013; Shalev and Schrift 2018): that observers infer mono-brand users were motivated relatively more by brand than other features (e.g., quality)—in essence, that they had used brand as a heuristic for their purchase decision—and had therefore less carefully considered which item to buy.